Bai Qingyan discovered many talented individuals, including Lu Jin’s daughter Lu Baohua, Grand Marshal Lu’s granddaughter… and naturally several exceptionally outstanding candidates from humble backgrounds.

For this palace examination, the topic Bai Qingyan set was to have these erudite scholars, selected through layer upon layer of competition, discuss the advantages and disadvantages of the newly implemented reforms based on the new policies – the military merit system, agricultural land distribution system, water conservancy projects, establishment of schools, allowing women to attend schools and participate in imperial examinations, and other new policies. They were to present their analysis, solutions, or insights on the new policies without being constrained by conventional thinking.

Perhaps having reached the palace examination stage, many wanted to impress the Empress Dowager with flowery, ornate essays, so they extremely praised Bai Qingyan’s new policies, wishing they could praise them in novel ways.

But since Bai Qingyan had set such a topic, her purpose was to truly find talented officials with real learning who could accomplish practical work. Naturally… Bai Qingyan also needed scholars with extremely high literary accomplishments, as revising books was also very important for the Great Zhou.

Among them, what surprised Bai Qingyan most was Imperial Teacher Old Tan’s granddaughter, Tan Yaozeng. Born into the Tan family, Bai Qingyan didn’t doubt her extensive learning, but unexpectedly, like Imperial Teacher Old Tan, Tan Yaozeng possessed an upright character of steel.

In her examination paper, Tan Yaozeng raised several points, emphasizing where Bai Qingyan’s new policy implementation was too hasty, supporting her arguments with extensive citations and historical examples to explain her reasoning. She then presented her insights, which could be called penetrating, with very appropriate solutions.

There was another person who was Bai Qingyan’s acquaintance… Xue Renyi.

Though Xue Renyi was somewhat pedantic, he answered the questions that Bai Qingyan had brought very well.

His words were like pearls and gems. Besides mentioning measures to encourage farming after distributing land to the people, he used the “Agricultural Merit Law” as a foundation and proposed that since Bai Qingyan could establish schools to teach people literacy, she could also establish schools to teach people farming methods, which would surely increase grain production.

He also openly pointed out that Bai Qingyan had not proposed strong measures for official evaluation. Though not very obvious in court, factional activities were countless.

He also raised that after women became officials, they would easily have accidents when bearing children after marriage. If they held high positions and great power, this would be disadvantageous to overall development. But training deputies too early might make the deputies realize they could replace their superiors, instead of breeding many sinister schemes.

Xue Renyi was the first and only candidate who dared to bring the court’s underhanded dealings and power struggles into the open for discussion. The end of his examination paper seemed to have more to say.

When Lu Jin saw Xue Renyi’s paper and thought about how Xue Renyi had once beaten the imperial drum to seek justice for scholars nationwide, exposing the imperial examination fraud case, he laughed and said… this Xue Renyi was naturally suited for the Censorate – he dared to say anything.

After Bai Qingyan read Xue Renyi’s paper, she had Empress Dowager Dong Shi name Xue Renyi as the top graduate.

The second place went to Grand Marshal Lu’s granddaughter Lu Fenglang. Lu Fenglang lived up to her name – a phoenix among people. Her aspirations were already grand enough to encompass the entire realm, actually beginning to plan how Great Zhou should deal with Yan after destroying Western Liang.

She compared Yan’s current system under Empress Ji with Bai Qingyan’s new policies, neither blindly praising nor overly worrying, but calmly analyzing how to use the new policies to attract Yan’s people to Great Zhou after Great Zhou had just finished fighting at Yunjing, proposing the importance of the people to a nation.

Bai Qingyan gave third place to Imperial Teacher Old Tan’s granddaughter.

For the first place in the second tier, Bai Qingyan selected Dong Tingzhen. This wasn’t because Bai Qingyan favored relatives or elevated her maternal family, but because Dong Tingzhen’s paper was too much to Bai Qingyan’s liking.

Dong Tingzhen, being Bai Qingyan’s cousin, understood too well what kind of brilliant strategist her cousin was. When she heard her aunt’s palace examination topic, she immediately understood the topic was set by her cousin and further understood that her cousin was seeking truly capable people in court who could help solve problems, not those who wanted to see others praise the new policies.

Dong Tingzhen picked up her brush and expressed her thoughts freely, pointing out that although Bai Qingyan had already allowed women to take imperial examinations, she still needed to use talent without restriction. There were many people with amazing talents who, because of an accident that crippled their legs, could not participate in imperial examinations. Their great learning was wasted, perhaps only able to become school teachers, which was very regrettable.

Besides this, Dong Tingzhen was bold enough to write “Great Zhou Official Evaluation Guidelines” in her examination paper, detailing plans for an official evaluation system. Though not entirely comprehensive, it concisely explained systems for rewarding and punishing officials, promotion, dismissal, or demotion, no longer using age and seniority as important measures for advancement.

To make elderly officials willingly step aside for talented young successors, they could receive honor-supporting salaries several times higher than their active service pay after honorable retirement, based on their evaluations during their terms.

When Great Zhou pacified Western Liang and established the grand plan to merge the two nations with Yan, Great Zhou’s court would need an influx of fresh blood to become more vibrant and flourishing.

Bai Qingyan named Dong Tingzhen first in the second tier precisely to send out information. Sharp-eyed veteran ministers who planned to rely on their age and experience would certainly understand that the court was about to change, and any veteran ministers who couldn’t keep up with the changes would be cleared out.

Pacifying Great Liang, settling Western Liang, reducing feudal domains, holding military power, and having popular support – the current Bai Qingyan was already Great Zhou’s absolute monarch who could make decisions without question. Her court ministers, whether in talent or ambition, must be able to keep up with Great Zhou’s advancing pace.

This time, there was another person who quite surprised Bai Qingyan – the son of Fan Yuhuai, who had once been very close to Lu Yuanpeng… Fan Yugan.

Fan Yugan had once been a dandy along with Sima Ping, Lu Yuanpeng, and others, and had also joined the army following Sima Ping and Lu Yuanpeng, but later couldn’t endure hardship and had his father find a way to bring him back to the capital.

Bai Jinxiu had once investigated Fan Yugan when the former dynasty’s deposed crown prince sent Fan Yugan to transport grain to Qingxi Mountain pass. It was said… Fan Yugan felt that taking imperial examinations was also very hard, so he had once declared he only wanted to be a wealthy, idle person in this life. Unexpectedly, this time because Bai Qingyan had specially opened additional examinations after ascending the throne, he also participated in the test.

Though his writing wasn’t flowery, it was valuable for being practical with accurate word usage, showing he had indeed put in considerable effort.

Bai Qingyan heard from her mother, Dong Shi, that when her uncle had come to visit Mother last time, he had mentioned Fan Yugan to Mother. Because Fan Yugan’s father Fan Yuhuai had once been a rebel, after Fan Yugan returned to the capital, except for the dandies who had previously mingled with Fan Yugan, Lu Yuanpeng, and Sima Ping, no one associated with Fan Yugan anymore.

This time, when Fan Yugan wanted to take the imperial examinations, many people mocked and ridiculed him coldly. At the beginning, he almost couldn’t participate in the imperial examinations because his father was Fan Yuhuai.